Celebrates 95th anniversary. "Russian People's Line" congratulates dear colleagues, editor-in-chief Valery Vasilievich Khatyushin, our dear author, authors and readers of the magazine beloved by several generations on a wonderful anniversary! We wish you creative perseverance, strength and inspiration in our common cause of preserving and developing our national culture. Many years!

As I have written more than once, the Young Guard magazine is one of the oldest literary magazines in Russia. The magazine celebrates its 95th anniversary being at the forefront of the struggle for the Russian nation and Russian national interests. The history of this struggle is the history of the entire Russian movement of the 20th and 21st centuries. And here it is impossible not to recall the main, most significant milestones of that tragic path of formation and strengthening of national self-consciousness, which the country and our journal have passed over this almost century-long period.

In 1922, as you know, our magazine was founded at the suggestion of Leiba Davidovich Trotsky himself. And his man was also recommended as the editor-in-chief, more precisely, even his relative - Leopold Averbakh, who in 1937 was shot for Trotskyist activities. Our magazine was for a long time a cosmopolitan publication that advocated proletarian internationalism, militant atheism and class hatred for the enemies of the October Revolution. For many years it was simply unthinkable to stutter about any national Russian problems on its pages. Most often, it published such authors who are now forgotten or long rejected by Russian literature: Bezymensky, Bagritsky, Svetlov, Lelevich, Nikolai Aseev, Semyon Kirsanov, etc.

We all know perfectly well what the new government did with Russian national poets, as well as with Russian representatives of the humanities. In 1921, Nikolai Gumilyov was shot, in the same year Alexander Blok was brought to death. In 1925, Alexei Ganin, a peasant poet and friend of Yesenin, was shot in a fabricated case called the Order of Russian Fascists. In the same year, Sergei Yesenin himself was killed. In the same 1920s, persecution began against Slavic scholars, teachers of humanitarian universities, who remained in Russia and did not leave it on famous philosophical ships in the fall of 1922, when more than 200 people were thrown out of the country on the personal instructions of Lenin. Among these Slavic scholars who were subjected to repressions were academicians, people of world renown, such as the outstanding Russian historian Sergei Fedorovich Platonov and literary scholar, ethnographer, philologist, Russianist, professor at Moscow University Mikhail Nestorovich Speransky. In 1933, this wave of repressions against Russian scientists was repeated on an even larger scale, more than a hundred Russian teachers of humanitarian universities, historians, philosophers, philologists were arrested, among whom was another outstanding scientist, academician, researcher of Russian literature, including the works of Avvakum and stylistics of Pushkin's prose, Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov. In 1937, the great Russian poet Nikolai Klyuev was shot. In 1938, Nikolai Zabolotsky was arrested and sentenced to five years in the camps. Cosmopolitans in power fabricated cases from scratch, not allowing to stutter about anything Russian. I'm not talking about the poets who served in the White Guard, who were forced to hide abroad. One of them, Arseniy Nesmelov, was arrested in 1945 in Harbin and shot. And let us recall the “Leningrad case” fabricated by Beria in the late forties and early 50s, according to which more than two hundred Russian party workers were shot. I remind you of this so that it is clear in what atmosphere creative people who remember their national roots had to live and work, when it was strictly forbidden to remember them.

In the first decades of its existence, Young Guard was indeed a Komsomol magazine that clearly followed party guidelines. And so it lasted until the mid-60s, when Anatoly Vasilievich Nikonov, a front-line soldier, journalist and writer, who graduated from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, was appointed editor-in-chief in 1963.

Although, of course, even before that, very famous, large and even great Russian writers spoke at the Young Guard. In the 1920s, Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Sholokhov, Leonid Leonov, Vyacheslav Shishkov, Serafimovich, Furmanov, Fadeev were published here. In 1932, the Young Guard published the first book of Nikolai Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered. In 1934 - the second book. Here his new novel "Born by the Storm" began to be printed, which the author did not have time to finish. And in the late forties, chapters from Sholokhov's novel "Virgin Soil Upturned" were seen here. And even then the magazine educated young people in the spirit of Soviet patriotism. But still, I repeat, at that time it was not permissible to touch on the national problems of the Russian people on the pages of the press. Cosmopolitans were terribly afraid of everything nationally Russian. After all, they came to power with the aim of destroying the Russian state and managed to do a lot on the way to this goal. And therefore their main enemies were the carriers of national consciousness - people who knew and remembered Russian national and cultural traditions. It was they who had to be either isolated from the population, or physically destroyed. They, the cosmopolitans, behaved here like occupiers in every sense.

But, strange as it may sound, the war prevented the final finishing off of the national feeling in our people. This terrible war, which claimed so many Russian lives, nevertheless saved Russia from moral, from spiritual death. The war forced this cosmopolitan power to appeal to the national feeling of the people. When Stalin made an appeal: "Brothers and sisters!" and the people responded to this prayer, the internal enemy was forced to bite his tongue. And the war really awakened in the people a national feeling, which turned out to be stronger than the Nazi feeling of the Germans and all of fascist Europe. And when Stalin in 1945 proclaimed a toast "For the great Russian people!", The internal enemy was silent, although he harbored a wild rage.

During the war the magazine was not published. The magazine resumed its activities in 1948. Incidentally, the year I was born. But since the mid-60s there has been a turning point in the political and spiritual line of the magazine. Around Anatoly Nikonov, a persistent patriotic group of authors began to form. Leading posts in the editorial office were occupied by talented young Russian writers: Vikulov, Chalmaev, Sorokin, Ganichev, Petelin, Tsybin. Materials began to appear on the pages of the magazine, which it was impossible to even think about before. That is, Young Guard was the first to break through this gap, it became the first real, publicly available magazine in Russia, in which they started talking about the revival of Russian national culture and Russian cultural traditions.

In 1964, Nikita Khrushchev, an ignorant, uncultured, vengeful, godless man, who destroyed churches and gave away ancestral Russian lands to other republics of the USSR, who later separated from us along with these lands, was removed from all leadership positions. Khrushchev destroyed the cultural heritage of the past under the slogan of de-Stalinization and the promise of life under communism. It was necessary to take advantage of the change of power and win back from the so-called. "sixties", these liberals of that time, our Victory, its heroes and cultural monuments, or rather, to return the memory of the people. And the editors of the Young Guard, headed by Anatoly Nikonov, succeeded to a large extent.

In 1965, on the pages of the magazine, an appeal was published by prominent figures of Russian culture to young people under the heading “Protect our shrines!” This appeal was picked up by other publications, it began to be discussed in clubs, libraries, and schools. This appeal said that we must protect the monuments of our culture, history, architecture, preserve temples, palaces, love and preserve Russian classics, in a word, everything that contains the history of the country. By the way, this appeal just became the impetus for the creation of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments. So the "Young Guard" can be considered one of the founders of this unique revival union, from which the organizational Russian national movement began. The "Young Guard" became, as it were, the first Russian party that was not subjected to physical repression.

It was in those years that the famous “Letters from the Russian Museum” by Vladimir Soloukhin, patriotic publications by Leonid Leonov, V. Chivilikhin, artist Glazunov, sculptor Konenkov, literature researchers M. Lobanov, V. Chalmaev, V. Kozhinov appeared on the pages of the magazine, causing a wide controversy , Oleg Mikhailov. Writers of the post-war period began to cooperate with the journal: M. Alekseev, Yu. Bondaroev, A. Ivanov, V. Fedorov, P. Proskurin, V. Shukshin, N. Kuzmin, B. Primerov, N. Rubtsov, F. Chuev, E. Volodin. It seemed that the revival of Russian culture, Russian national identity would grow rapidly.

However, our enemies did not doze off either. They dug around the ethno-liberal magazine of that time, Novy Mir, which was headed, unfortunately, by a wonderful poet, but a weak-willed and very dependent person - Alexander Tvardovsky. It was in the "New World" that the most Russophobic critical articles by A. Sinyavsky, V. Voinovich, V. Lakshin, St. Rassadin and other active haters of Russian traditional culture were published every now and then. The eminent authors of Novy Mir, and even some of their Kremlin-party patrons, were very annoyed by the patriotic, soil-based, traditionalist orientation of the publications of the Young Guard. They understood perfectly well what this could lead to ideologically. And they were very afraid that the glorification of Russian patriotism could lead to their removal from power in the country and to the restoration of national feelings, national consciousness in the Russian people. And this was simply unacceptable for them, like death, not for that they destroyed the Russian Empire with its pride of the Great Russians, so that now it would be so easy to surrender to some “Russian-Pyat” soilmen. Direct attacks began against the Young Guard in the pages of Novy Mir, accusing its authors of retreating from the gains of the October Revolution, of infatuation with patriarchy, redneck, of ignoring this very proletarian internationalism. Denunciations and signals also came to the ideological department of the Central Committee of the party.

In the end, these figures decided to strike a theoretical blow at the Russian trend that was emerging in Soviet literature. The critic Alexander Dementyev, who in the past worked for Novy Mir and was a regular contributor, appeared in Novy Mir's April 1969 issue with an article "On Traditions and Nationalities." In his article, he outlined these liberal concerns about the too close interest of the authors of the "Young Guard" in national traditions, in national culture and its relationship with technical progress, in the features of the national character, shaped by natural and historical conditions, spoke about their supposedly "narrowly national » attitude to the motherland - big and small, to the intelligentsia and the people.

Dementiev and his backers feared that these public sentiments would be exploited by resurgent Russian nationalists. This was, in fact, the first attempt to characterize the position of the "Young Guard" as an organ of a certain direction of social thought. Dementyev, according to Solzhenitsyn, rammed into the Young Guard. And he ended his article with a quotation from the party program, which affirmed the duty "to wage an irreconcilable struggle against the manifestations and survivals of any nationalism and chauvinism." That is, it was such an open, official denunciation of people who spoke about their Russianness. And Tvardovsky signed Dementiev's article for publication.

In response to this boorish publication, 11 Russian writers, authors of the Young Guard, among whom were A. Ivanov, M. Alekseev, S. Vikulov, P. Proskurin and others, published a letter in the Ogonyok magazine entitled “What is opposed "New world"?" Eleven writers accused Novy Mir of going against "the main spiritual values ​​of our society", being a conductor of bourgeois ideology and cosmopolitanism.

The reaction, as is usually the case with liberal gentlemen, was hysterical and shrill. They called the letter of eleven writers "a fascist manifesto of the masculine." Novomirovtsev was supported by Simonov and Granin. But in support of the letters of Russian writers to Ogonyok, there was a stream of letters from ordinary people from all over the country. These letters were published in central newspapers, and copies of these letters were sent to Tvardovsky in Novy Mir. Even the Pravda newspaper took the side of the authors of the letter published in Ogonyok. Oddly enough, Solzhenitsyn also turned out to be a supporter of the writing of Russian writers, despite the fact that he himself was the author of Novy Mir.

A meeting of editors was urgently held in the Central Committee of the Party, at which the future "architect of perestroika", deputy head of the propaganda and agitation department of the Central Committee of the CPSU A.N. Yakovlev, who said that both are to blame. But from the published memoirs of Yakovlev, one can conclude that he dislikes the national position of the Young Guard and sympathizes with the "New World".

However, the party elite was wary and distrustful of any movement not sanctioned by it. They could not but react at the top of the party to the public outcry caused by the publications in Novy Mir and Ogonyok. All this led to a number of organizational measures in relation to the "Russian Party". A special resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the magazine "Young Guard" was adopted (for some reason, classified to this day). The journal was accused of retreating from the Leninist principles of party spirit, non-class, non-social interpretation of nationality, idealization of pre-revolutionary Russia, etc. In 1970 A.V. Nikonov was removed from the post of chief editor, there were layoffs in the editorial board of the magazine "Our Contemporary" and in a number of editorial boards of publications controlled by national patriots. In the same year, at the insistence of the party leaders, Tvardovsky also had to leave Novy Mir, the editorial board of which was disbanded. That is, the authorities punished both of them: they say, there is nothing for you to discuss such important problems here without our permission. We know better than you what to do and what to say to the people. It was this ambivalent position of the party leaders that ultimately brought the party to ruin.

In 1972, Yakovlev himself spoke in Literaturnaya Gazeta with a large critical article called “Against anti-historicism”. In his article, he openly sided with the position of Dementiev and Novy Mir and criticized the Russian national direction of the magazines Young Guard and Our Contemporary. But he got out at the wrong time, he hurried. Then the party was not yet ready for a liberal takeover, and he was removed from all his party posts and sent as ambassador to Canada, from where he eventually returned fully prepared for his work to destroy the Soviet Union.

After Nikonov, the critic Felix Ovcharenko was appointed editor-in-chief of the Young Guard, but he did not stay in this position for long, a year and a half, and died unexpectedly. And the main one was Nikonov’s deputy, already by that time a well-known writer who signed the same letter of 11 in Ogonyok, Anatoly Ivanov, author of the books Eternal Call and Shadows Disappear at Noon. Anatoly Ivanov continued the national-patriotic line of the magazine. All the best literary forces of the Russian trend again reached out to the Young Guard.

True, here one cannot but recall another wave of ideological repressions that occurred in the 60s and 70s. Suffice it to say about the fate of the Russian writer Leonid Borodin, who has already passed away. In 1968 he was arrested and sentenced to 6 years as a member of the All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People (VSHSON). Together with him, all the other members of this Union were condemned. He was released in 1973.

In the 70s, the handwritten magazine Veche began to appear, which was published by V.N. Osipov. Among the authors of this magazine were Ilya Glazunov, Sergey Semanov, Vadim Kozhinov, Alexei Markov, Gennady Shimanov, Leonid Borodin and others. led by Andropov, the magazine was destroyed, and a criminal case was opened against its authors. The journal was recognized by the court as anti-Soviet and Slavophile. The publisher of the magazine Vl. Osipov was convicted and sentenced to 8 years in the camps, and Sergei Semanov was fired from the post of editor-in-chief of the magazine Man and Law. After being released from the Mordovian camps, V. Osipov began to publish another handwritten magazine of the same kind called "Earth". The first issue was published in 1987, in total 10 issues were released. Since 1988, V. Osipov has already actively gone into politics and created an organization called the "Union of Christian Revival", which operates to this day.

In the late 80s, during the so-called. glasnost and perestroika, people were no longer imprisoned for their interest in Russian culture, let alone shot. It was already possible to write about it openly and without consequences. Literary criticism and journalism of that time became the most popular reading among the broad sections of our people. The circulation of Russian magazines then reached its apogee. The "Young Guard" published the sharpest, most frank articles, including those revealing the essence and crimes of Zionism. In the late 80s, I published several of my literary-critical articles in this journal, and in early 1990 I was invited to work in this journal as the head of the criticism department, despite the fact that by that time I had several published poetry books, then my father-in-law I was known mainly as a poet.

I began to clear away the “Augean” blockages of materials from the department of criticism after A. Fomenko, who was fired for idleness. And I came across an article by the poet Ivan Lystsov "The Murder of Yesenin", which was received by the department two years ago. It spoke in detail, frankly and conclusively about who persecuted, persecuted and who literally killed the great Russian poet. I edited the article and prepared it for print. Anatoly Ivanov immediately supported me and even asked me to write an afterword from the editors, in which we turned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB of the USSR with a proposal for a new, objective investigation into the circumstances of the death of S. Yesenin. In the same 1990, the article was published, but, naturally, no new investigation, according to our appeal, was followed by the authorities. Moreover, the so-called. The "perestroika" press attacked the magazine and the author, I. Lystsov, with accusations of speculation and slander. Nevertheless, this was the first publication in the Soviet press in which Yesenin's suicide was refuted. (In 1994, Ivan Lystsov died under unclear circumstances.)

I began to actively involve well-known Russian authors of the patriotic trend in cooperation with the magazine. It was a time of hope for changes for the better in the country, and the magazine aroused great interest among readers, was in demand by hundreds of thousands of our people. The authors of the magazine were the strongest Russian critics and publicists at that time: Apollon Kuzmin, Mikhail Lobanov, Galina Litvinova, Tatyana Glushkova, Vsevolod Sakharov, Mikhail Lemeshev, Oleg Platonov, Vladimir Yudin, Vitaly Kanashkin, Yuri Vlasov, Vladimir Vasilyev, Mark Lyubomudrov, Eduard Volodin and even Vadim Kozhinov, although he soon switched to Our Contemporary, where Stanislav Kunyaev became editor-in-chief.

In the same year, I began publishing articles by A. Kuzmich (Anatoly Kuzmich Tsikunov) in the journal, which made a stunning impression with the disclosure of the secret plans of the international mafia in relation to Russia, prophetic tragedy, depth and clarity of thinking, and their documentation. His articles were published in the issue without delay. “The Russian market in the light of new legislation”, “Bread card or a noose around the neck”, “Why finances do not sing romances”, “How we are robbed by prices” and others - hit the target one after another, like heavy artillery, and caused a real shock from architects and catastrophe superintendents. They were expected, they were reread and reprinted in other publications - in the newspapers Russkiy Vestnik, Resurrection, Domostroy, etc. These materials, of course, could no longer stop the destructive flow that had gained strength, but their author became extremely dangerous to the traitors who were in power in the country. During a business trip to Nizhnevartovsk on May 20, 1991, he was found dead in a hotel room.

In the first issue of "MG" for 1991, I published my article "On false poets and Russian poetry", which caused a loud response. This article, on the one hand, raised to the shield, discovered talented, but little-known at that time Russian poets, and on the other hand, it overthrew the fabulously promoted idols of Soviet poetry from the poetic Olympus, who were worshiped by millions of readers: Yevtushenko, Voznesensky and Akhmadulin. Yunost magazine, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moskovsky Komsomolets snarled angrily, and the so-called “liberal-democratic public”, anti-Soviet and Russophobic through and through, clearly noticed and took note of the author of the article ... Our magazine obviously got on her nerves.

In 1991, Anatoly Ivanov asked me, in addition to the criticism department, to temporarily head the journalism department. But, as you know, everything temporary inevitably becomes permanent. I was in charge of the journalism department of the Young Guard until 1999, when I became deputy editor-in-chief.

And then came August 1991. At the beginning of the month, subscribers and readers received No. 8 "MG", where my article "Open your eyes !!!" (at the same time it was published in the Russkiy Vestnik), in which an analysis was given of the terrible moral and economic situation in the country and the events of the coming years were predicted. As my friends told me, they hid this number from prying eyes so that, God forbid, someone would not report them to the investigating authorities as readers of the “anti-perestroika” press ...

On the morning of the 19th, I was going to work at the editorial office. And suddenly I heard a message on the radio about the introduction of a state of emergency in the country, about the introduction of military equipment into Moscow and about the removal of M. Gorbachev from the post of president. My heart trembled with joy: "Thank God! .." It seemed that now Gorbachev's mess would be stopped.

In the editorial office of the "Young Guard" that day, we were all in high spirits and expected Yeltsin's arrest. However, the first day of the State Emergency Committee passed, a vague night full of great expectation passed, but nothing happened. The next day, crowds of Yeltsinoids climbed onto tanks and armored personnel carriers, which stood aimlessly in the center of the capital. I was there and saw it with my own eyes. This is where the doubt crept into me. And when these same crowds began to gather at the White House and the drunken Yeltsin, surrounded by his Jewish hangers-on, stood out in front of them cheekily and self-confidently, I realized that everything had collapsed, that the GKachepists were incapable of anything. On the evening of the 21st, they were arrested.

I remember a state of terrible spiritual depression and hopelessness. Already that day it was clear to me that the old country had come to an end. Almost all my acquaintances and thousands of patriots throughout Russia experienced the same state. And the swindlers, scumbags, Russophobes and all the swindlers, united by one name "democrats", brazenly and defiantly celebrated their Pyrrhic victory.

Threats rained down on our magazine from all sides, including from the TV screen. Someone from the neighboring Jewish publications of our 20-story building stuck a leaflet on the wall of the MG editorial office demanding to get out of the building in good health. (In the next few years, they all closed and fled for economic reasons.) Anatoly Ivanov called me to his office and instructed me to prepare a material with a response to these threats and with an explanation of what happened in the country to our readers. Literally in one day, I wrote an article "An answer to the pogromists", which was immediately put in the nearest issue.

The general chaos, economic collapse and destruction of the state, described in the article “Open your eyes!!!”, after the planned August coup d'etat, were already visible and understandable to everyone who was able to see and think. Our magazine published tough, direct journalistic articles in every issue, exposing the enemy forces that had seized power in the country. The "Young Guard" has become one of the main outposts of the struggle for Russia with the unbridled Russophobic-democratic epidemic.

Each issue of The Young Guard was like a breath of fresh air for the Russian patriotic reader. And for the destroyers and enemies of the country, each issue has been like a real bomb all these years. You look through the materials published in them in the early 90s, and you see how, in fact, everyone bears the stamp of tragedy. This state could not last indefinitely, hopelessly, something had to happen, some actions had to break through the resentment accumulated inside the Russian people, anger and curses against liars and rogues endowed with power. The Russian uprising was maturing and in September 1993 broke through in the center of Moscow, on Krasnaya Presnya. Following the revolted Supreme Soviet, the people revolted.

All these twelve days of confrontation with the Yeltsin-Gaidar non-humans, I was at the House of Soviets. I was both a witness and a participant in this great, albeit failed, Russian revolution. Then, after the shooting of the White House, everything that I saw and knew, everything that I experienced and thought about these days, I described in two articles: “Moscow Washed with Blood” and “Rhythms of Execution”, which were published to readers in "Young Guard". Then, for a whole year, we published articles, essays, letters, poems, stories in each issue under the heading "Black October".

After the events of October 3-4, the danger of defeat again hung over the Russian press. From the TV screen, the so-called. "Democrats" with faces twisted with anger demanded to "crush the reptile" and liquidate patriotic newspapers and magazines. They also made a similar appeal to Yeltsin in the Izvestia newspaper. Under this execution letter were forty-two well-known names. Many Russian newspapers were indeed closed.

However, the Russian press did not falter; moreover, it became even bolder and more straightforward. She began to call all things and all scoundrels even more stubbornly by their proper names, despite insults, threats, denunciations, provocations and direct influence of our ideological enemies and Russophobes. Moving from issue to issue, the MG printed works that were completely unique for their time, riveting the attention of many thousands of Russian people - the uplifting works of Metropolitan John (Snychev), Nikolai Kuzmin's documentary narratives "Retribution" and "Black Tulips of Perestroika", chapters of the novel Vladimir Uspensky's "Privy Councilor to the Leader", vivid literary portraits of contemporaries created by Vladimir Tsybin, Felix Chuev, Stanislav Zolottsev, biting journalistic articles by Valentin Rasputin, Eduard Volodin, Anatoly Lanshchikov, Nikolai Fedya, Eduard Khlystalov, Viktor Ilyukhin, Nikolai Konyaev, Sergei Semanov, Yuri Vorobyevsky, Mikhail Antonov and many other famous Russian writers. This was the true Guard of the best representatives of the people, fighting on the front line with an insidious and cruel enemy.

The year 1999 was a tragic year for our editorial staff. In May, A.S. Ivanov, and in October, A.A., who replaced him, passed away. Krotov. This heavy moral blow could change the direction and the entire work of the journal. It was necessary to take on the burden of responsibility in order to maintain the influence of the Young Guard on the public consciousness of Russia and not to lose contact with our experienced, authoritative authors, so as not to drop the high bar of professionalism in the creative and editorial work of the magazine.

The financial situation of the magazine by that time had become very difficult. The money from the subscription was no longer enough to issue monthly issues, to pay salaries, to rent offices and utilities. We, the new management, were forced to take drastic actions and serious changes in our work, because otherwise the magazine would cease to exist. We had to refuse to pay royalties, we had to start producing double issues, we had to shrink to a minimum, leaving the editors with only two offices on the floor that we occupied, and, of course, we had to reduce the workforce. This gave us the opportunity to resist, not crumble in the suffocating atmosphere of that economic and moral oppression, under which they really wanted to strangle us, literally and figuratively. Our enemies failed to destroy the magazine. And most importantly, we have kept the raised weight of the national edition, we have not retreated a single step from the previously chosen path. And our authors, we must give them their due, did not turn away from us, treated the problems of the journal with understanding and continued to cooperate with us.

The years that have passed since then have become a time of incredible vital and moral trials for our people, for the country and for the Russian national movement. Our magazine has never faltered, has not compromised its loyalty to Russian interests and has not gone to the service of the oligarchic government, no matter how hard it has been for us all these years.

In 2009, I became the editor-in-chief of a military and patriotic magazine that has become my own, preserving the traditions of Russian classical literature.

Our magazine lives on, with the same energy it fights against the falsehood and vulgarity of pseudo-cultural businessmen and the meanness of the Russophobic "fifth column". But the main task of the Russian national-patriotic magazine is to provide materials in each issue that reveal the truth of our great history and show the reality of our time both in artistic form and in public sound.

The Young Guard celebrates its amazing anniversary with the same confidence in the rightness of its cause.

"Young guard"

The heroic history of the underground organization of Krasnodon boys and girls who fought against the Nazis and laid down their lives in this struggle was known to every Soviet person. Now this story is remembered much less often ...

The famous novel Alexandra Fadeeva and the movie of the same name Sergei Gerasimov. In the 90s of the last century, they began to forget about the Young Guard: Fadeev’s novel was removed from the school curriculum, and the story itself was declared almost an invention of Soviet propagandists.

Meanwhile, in the name of the freedom of their homeland, the young men and women of Krasnodon fought against the German invaders, showing stamina and heroism, withstood torture and bullying, and died very young. It is impossible to forget about their feat, says Doctor of Historical Sciences Nina PETROVA- compiler of the collection of documents "The true history of the "Young Guard"".

Almost everyone died...

– Did the study of the heroic history of the Krasnodon Komsomol underground begin during the war years?

- In the Soviet Union, it was officially believed that 3,350 Komsomol and youth underground organizations were operating in the temporarily occupied territory. But we do not know the history of any of them. For example, almost nothing is known about the youth organization that arose in the city of Stalino (now Donetsk). And the young guards really were in the spotlight. It was the largest organization in terms of numbers, almost all of whose members died.

Shortly after the liberation of Krasnodon on February 14, 1943, Soviet and party organs began collecting information about the Young Guard. Already on March 31, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR Vasily Sergienko reported on the activities of this organization to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev brought the information received to the attention of Joseph Stalin, and the story of the "Young Guard" received wide publicity, they started talking about it. And in July 1943, following the results of a trip to Krasnodon, the deputy head of the special department of the Central Committee of the Komsomol Anatoly Toritsyn(later Major General of the KGB) and instructor of the Central Committee N. Sokolov prepared a memorandum on the emergence and activities of the Young Guard.

How and when did this organization come about?

Krasnodon is a small mining town. Mining settlements grew up around it - Pervomaika, Semeykino and others. At the end of July 1942, Krasnodon was occupied. It is officially recognized that the "Young Guard" arose at the end of September. But we must keep in mind that small underground youth organizations appeared not only in the city, but also in the villages. And at first they were not connected with each other.

I believe that the process of forming the "Young Guard" began at the end of August and ended by November 7th. The documents contain information that in August an attempt was made to unite the youth of Krasnodon Sergei Tyulenin. According to the recollections of teachers, Sergei was a very enterprising young man, thoughtful, serious. He loved literature and dreamed of becoming a pilot.

In September appeared in Krasnodon Viktor Tretyakevich. His family came from Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk). Tretyakevich was left underground by the regional committee of the Komsomol and immediately began to play a leading role in the activities of the underground organization of Krasnodon. By that time, he had already managed to fight in a partisan detachment ...

- Disputes about how duties were distributed at the headquarters of the organization have not subsided for more than 70 years. Who headed the "Young Guard" - Viktor Tretyakevich or Oleg Koshevoy? As far as I understand, even a few surviving Young Guards expressed different opinions on this matter ...

– Oleg Koshevoy was a 16-year-old boy , joined the Komsomol in 1942. How could he create such a militant organization when older people were nearby? How could Koshevoi seize the initiative from Tretyakevich, joining the Young Guard later than him?

We can confidently say that Tretyakevich, a member of the Komsomol since January 1939, led the organization. Much older than Koshevoy was Ivan Turkenich, who served in the Red Army. He managed to avoid arrest in January 1943, spoke at the funeral of the Young Guards and managed to talk about the activities of the organization in hot pursuit. Turkenich died during the liberation of Poland. From his repeated official statements, it followed that Koshevoy appeared in the "Young Guard" on the eve of November 7, 1942. True, after some time, Oleg really became the secretary of the Komsomol organization, collected membership dues, and took part in some actions. But he was not the leader.

How many people were in the underground organization?

– There is still no consensus on this. In Soviet times, for some reason, it was believed that the more underground workers, the better. But, as a rule, the larger the underground organization, the more difficult it is to maintain secrecy. And the failure of the Young Guard is an example of this. If we take official data on the number, then they range from 70 to 100 people. Some local researchers talk about 130 Young Guards.

Promotional poster for the film "The Young Guard", directed by Sergei Gerasimov. 1947

In addition, the question arises: who should be considered members of the Young Guard? Only those who worked in it constantly, or also those who helped sporadically, performing one-time assignments? There were people who sympathized with the Young Guards, but personally did nothing within the organization or did very little. Are those who wrote and distributed only a few leaflets during the occupation considered underground workers? Such a question arose after the war, when it became prestigious to be a Young Guard and people began to apply for confirmation of their membership in the Young Guard, whose participation in the organization was previously unknown.

- What ideas and motives underlay the activities of the Young Guard?

– Boys and girls grew up in the families of miners, were educated in Soviet schools, were brought up in a patriotic spirit. They loved literature - both Russian and Ukrainian. They wanted to convey to their countrymen the truth about the true state of affairs at the front, to dispel the myth of the invincibility of Nazi Germany. That's why they distributed leaflets. The guys were eager to do something to harm the enemies.

- What damage did the Young Guards cause to the invaders? What do they deserve credit for?

- The Young Guards, not thinking about what their descendants would call them and whether they were doing everything right, just did what they could, what was within their power. They burned the building of the German labor exchange with lists of those who were going to be taken to Germany. By decision of the Young Guard headquarters, over 80 Soviet prisoners of war were released from the concentration camp, and a herd of 500 cattle was beaten off. In the grain, which was prepared for shipment to Germany, bugs were launched - this led to the spoilage of several tons of grain. Young men attacked motorcyclists: they obtained weapons in order to start an open armed struggle at the right moment.

SMALL CELLS WERE CREATED IN DIFFERENT PLACES OF KRASNODON AND IN THE SURROUNDING VILLAGES. They were divided into fives. The members of each five knew each other, but they could not know the composition of the entire organization

Members of the "Young Guard" exposed the disinformation spread by the occupiers, instilled in the people faith in the inevitable defeat of the invaders. Members of the organization wrote by hand or printed leaflets in a primitive printing house, distributed reports of the Soviet Information Bureau. In leaflets, the Young Guards exposed the lies of fascist propaganda, sought to tell the truth about the Soviet Union, about the Red Army. In the first months of the occupation, the Germans, calling on young people to work in Germany, promised a good life for everyone there. And some succumbed to these promises. It was important to dispel the illusions.

On the night of November 7, 1942, the guys hung out red flags on the buildings of schools, the gendarmerie and other institutions. The flags were hand-sewn by the girls from white fabric, then painted scarlet - a color that symbolized freedom for the Young Guards. On the eve of the new year, 1943, members of the organization attacked a German car carrying gifts and mail for the occupiers. The guys took the gifts with them, burned the mail, and hid the rest.

Unbowed. Hood. F.T. Kostenko

- How long did the "Young Guard" operate?

- Arrests began immediately after the Catholic Christmas - at the end of December 1942. Accordingly, the period of active activity of the organization lasted about three months.

Young Guards. Biographical essays on members of the Krasnodon party and Komsomol underground / Comp. R.M. Aptekar, A.G. Nikitenko. Donetsk, 1981

The true story of the "Young Guard" / Comp. N.K. Petrov. M., 2015

Who betrayed anyway?

- Various people were blamed for the failure of the Young Guard. Is it possible today to draw final conclusions and name the one who betrayed the underground fighters to the enemy and is guilty of their death?

- He was declared a traitor in 1943 Gennady Pocheptsov, who was accepted into the organization by Tretyakevich. However, the 15-year-old Pocheptsov had nothing to do with the governing bodies and was not even very active in the Young Guard. He could not know all of its members. Even Turkenich and Koshevoy did not know everyone. This was hindered by the very principle of building an organization proposed by Tretyakevich. Small cells were created in different places of Krasnodon and in the surrounding villages. They were divided into fives. The members of each five knew each other, but they could not know the composition of the entire organization.

Testimony against Pocheptsov was given by a former lawyer of the Krasnodon city government who collaborated with the Germans Mikhail Kuleshov- During the occupation, an investigator of the district police. He claimed that on 24 or 25 December he entered the office of the commandant of the Krasnodonsky district and the head of the local police, Vasily Solikovsky, and saw Pocheptsov's statement on his desk. Then they said that the young man allegedly handed over to the police a list of Young Guards through his stepfather. But where is this list? Nobody saw him. Stepfather Pocheptsov, Vasily Gromov, after the release of Krasnodon, he testified that he did not carry any list to the police. Despite this, on September 19, 1943, Pocheptsov, his stepfather Gromov and Kuleshov were publicly shot. Before the execution, a 15-year-old boy rolled on the ground and shouted that he was not guilty ...

- And now there is an established point of view about who was the traitor?

– There are two points of view. According to the first version, he betrayed Pocheptsov. According to the second, the failure did not occur because of betrayal, but because of poor conspiracy. Vasily Levashov and some other surviving Young Guards argued that if not for the attack on the car with Christmas presents, the organization could have survived. Boxes with canned food, sweets, biscuits, cigarettes, things were stolen from the car. All this was taken home. Valeria Borts took the raccoon coat. When the arrests began, Valeria's mother cut the fur coat into small pieces, which she then destroyed.

Caught young underground workers on cigarettes. I sold them Mitrofan Puzyrev. The police were also on the trail of candy wrappers that the guys threw anywhere. And so the arrests began before the new year. So, I think, the organization was ruined by non-compliance with the rules of secrecy, the naivety and gullibility of some of its members.

Before everyone was arrested Evgenia Moshkova- the only communist among the Young Guards; he was brutally tortured. On January 1, they took Ivan Zemnukhov and Viktor Tretyakevich.

After the release of Krasnodon, there were rumors that Tretyakevich allegedly could not stand the torture and betrayed his comrades. But there is no documentary evidence for this. Yes, and many facts do not fit with the version of the betrayal of Tretyakevich. He was one of the first to be arrested, and until the very day of his execution, that is, for two weeks, he was severely tortured. Why, if he already named everyone? It is also unclear why the Young Guards were taken in groups. The last group was taken on the night of January 30-31, 1943 - a month after Tretyakevich himself was arrested. According to the testimonies of the Nazi accomplices who tortured the Young Guards, the tortures did not break Victor.

The version about his betrayal also contradicts the fact that Tretyakevich was thrown into the mine first and still alive. It is known that at the last moment he tried to drag the chief of police Solikovsky and the head of the German gendarmerie Zons into the pit with him. For this, Victor received a blow on the head with a pistol handle.

During the arrests and investigations, policemen Solikovsky, Zakharov, as well as Plokhikh and Sevastyanov tried their best. They mutilated Ivan Zemnukhov beyond recognition. Yevgeny Moshkov was doused with water, taken outside, then put on the stove, and then again taken for interrogation. Sergei Tyulenin was cauterized with a red-hot rod. When Sergei's fingers were thrust into the door and closed it, he screamed and, unable to bear the pain, lost consciousness. Ulyana Gromova was suspended from the ceiling by her braids. The guys broke their ribs, cut off their fingers, gouged out their eyes ...

Ulyana Gromova (1924–1943) The suicide letter of the girl became known thanks to her friend Vera Krotova, after the release of Krasnodon, she went around all the cells and discovered this tragic inscription on the wall. She copied the text onto a piece of paper...

“There was no party underground in Krasnodon”

Why were they so brutally tortured?

- I think that the Germans wanted to enter the party underground, that's why they tortured me like that. And there was no party underground in Krasnodon. Not having received the information they needed, the Nazis executed members of the Young Guard. Most of the Young Guards were executed at mine number 5-bis on the night of January 15, 1943. 50 members of the organization were thrown into a mine shaft 53 meters deep.

–In print, you can find the number 72 ...

- 72 people - this is the total number of people executed there, so many corpses were raised from the mine. Among the dead were 20 communists and captured Red Army soldiers who had nothing to do with the Young Guard. Some of the Young Guards were shot, someone was thrown into the pit alive.

However, not everyone was executed that day. Oleg Koshevoy, for example, was detained only on January 22. On the road near Kartushino station, he was stopped by the police, searched, found a pistol, beaten and sent under escort to Rovenki. There he was again searched, and under the lining of his overcoat they found two forms of temporary membership cards and a self-made seal of the Young Guard. The police chief recognized the young man: Oleg was the nephew of his friend. When Koshevoy was interrogated and beaten, Oleg shouted out that he was the commissar of the Young Guard. Lyubov Shevtsova, Semyon Ostapenko, Viktor Subbotin and Dmitry Ogurtsov were also tortured in Rovenki.

The funeral of the Young Guard in the city of Krasnodon on March 1, 1943

Koshevoy was shot on January 26, and Lyubov Shevtsova and all the others on the night of February 9. Just five days later, on February 14, Krasnodon was released. The bodies of the Young Guards were taken out of the mine. On March 1, 1943, a funeral was held in the park named after Lenin Komsomol from morning to evening.

- Which of the young guards survived?

- Anatoly Kovalev was the only one who fled on the way to the place of execution. According to the memoirs, he was a brave and courageous young man. Little has always been said about him, although his story is interesting in its own way. He signed up for the police, but served there for only a few days. Then he joined the "Young Guard". Was arrested. Mikhail Grigoriev helped Anatoly escape, who untied the rope with his teeth. When I was in Krasnodon, I met Antonina Titova, Kovalev's girlfriend. At first, the wounded Anatoly was hiding from her. Then his relatives took him to the region of Dnepropetrovsk, where he disappeared, and his further fate is still unknown. The feat of the Young Guard was not even marked with the medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War", because Kovalev served as a policeman for several days. Antonina Titova waited for him for a long time, wrote memoirs, collected documents. But nothing has been published.

ALL DISPUTES ON SPECIFIC ISSUES AND ABOUT THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE IN THE ORGANIZATION SHOULD NOT SHADOW THE GREAT FEAT accomplished by the young underground workers of Krasnodon

Ivan Turkenich, Valeria Borts, Olga and Nina Ivantsov, Radik Yurkin, Georgy Arutyunyants, Mikhail Shishchenko, Anatoly Lopukhov and Vasily Levashov were saved. I will say a special word about the last one. On April 27, 1989, employees of the Central Archive of the Komsomol met with him and Tretyakevich's brother Vladimir. A tape recording was made. Levashov said that he fled near Amvrosievka, to the village of Puteinikov. When the Red Army arrived, he declared his desire to go to war. In September 1943, during an inspection, he admitted that he was in the temporarily occupied territory in Krasnodon, where he was abandoned after graduating from intelligence school. Not knowing that the story of the "Young Guard" had already gained fame, Vasily said that he was a member of it. After the interrogation, the officer sent Levashov to the barn, where some young man was already sitting. They started talking. At that meeting in 1989, Levashov said: "After only 40 years, I realized that it was an agent of that Chekist when I compared what he asked and what I answered."

As a result, Levashov was believed, he was sent to the front. He liberated Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa, Chisinau and Warsaw, took Berlin as part of the 5th shock army.

Roman Fadeeva

– Work on the book “Young Guard” Alexander Fadeev started in 1943. But the original version of the novel was criticized for not reflecting the leading role of the Communist Party. The writer took into account the criticism and revised the novel. Has historical truth suffered from this?

- I think that just the first version of the novel was successful and more in line with historical realities. In the second version, a description of the leading role of the party organization appeared, although in reality the Krasnodon party organization did not show itself in any way. The communists who remained in the city were arrested. They were tortured and executed. It is significant that no one made any attempts to recapture the captured communists and young guards from the Germans. The guys were taken home like kittens. Those who were arrested in the settlements were then taken in sledges for a distance of ten or more kilometers. They were accompanied by only two or three policemen. Has anyone tried to beat them back? No.

Only a few people left Krasnodon. Some, such as Anna Sopova, had the opportunity to escape, but did not use it.

Alexander Fadeev and Valeria Borts, one of the few survivors of the Young Guard, at a meeting with readers. 1947

- Why?

“They were afraid that relatives would suffer because of them.

- How accurately did Fadeev manage to reflect the history of the "Young Guard" and in what way did he deviate from historical truth?

- Fadeev himself said about this: “Although the heroes of my novel have real names and surnames, I did not write the real history of the Young Guard, but a work of art in which there is a lot of fictional and even fictional faces. Roman has the right to do so." And when Fadeev was asked whether it was worth making the Young Guard so bright and ideal, he replied that he wrote as he saw fit. Basically, the author accurately reflected the events that took place in Krasnodon, but there are also discrepancies with reality. Thus, the traitor Stakhovich is written out in the novel. This is a fictional collective image. And it was written from Tretyakevich - one to one.

Dissatisfaction with the way certain episodes of the history of the Young Guard were shown in the novel began to be expressed in full voice by the relatives and friends of the victims immediately after the book was published. For example, the mother of Lydia Androsova turned to Fadeev with a letter. She claimed that, contrary to what was written in the novel, her daughter's diary and her other notes never made it to the police and could not be the reason for the arrests. In a reply letter dated August 31, 1947 to D.K. and M.P. Androsov, Lydia's parents, Fadeev admitted:

“Everything that I wrote about your daughter shows her as a very devoted and persistent girl. I deliberately made it so that her diary allegedly fell into the hands of the Germans after her arrest. You know better than I do that there is not a single entry in the diary that speaks of the activities of the Young Guard and could serve the Germans for the benefit in terms of revealing the Young Guard. In this regard, your daughter was very careful. Therefore, by allowing such a fiction in the novel, I do not put any stain on your daughter.

- Parents thought otherwise ...

- Certainly. And most of all, the inhabitants of Krasnodon were indignant at the role assigned by the writer Oleg Koshevoy. Koshevoy's mother claimed (and this was included in the novel) that the underground gathered at their house on Sadovaya Street, 6. But the Krasnodon people knew for sure that German officers were quartered with her! This is not Elena Nikolaevna's fault: she had decent housing, so the Germans preferred it. But how could the headquarters of the "Young Guard" meet there ?! In fact, the headquarters of the organization was going to Arutyunyants, Tretyakevich and others.

Koshevoy's mother was awarded the Order of the Red Star in 1943. Even Oleg's grandmother, Vera Vasilievna Korostyleva, was awarded the medal "For Military Merit"! The stories in the novel about her heroic role are anecdotal. She didn't do anything. Later, Elena Nikolaevna wrote the book "The Tale of the Son." Or rather, other people wrote it. When she was asked at the Komsomol regional committee whether everything in the book was true and objective, she replied: “You know, writers wrote the book. But from my story.

- An interesting position.

- Even more interesting is that Oleg Koshevoy had a living father. He was divorced from Oleg's mother, lived in a neighboring town. So Elena Nikolaevna declared him dead! Although the father came to the grave of his son, mourned him.

Koshevoy's mother was an interesting, charming woman. Her story greatly influenced Fadeev. It must be said that the writer held meetings with relatives of not all the dead Young Guards. In particular, he refused to accept Sergei Tyulenin's relatives. Elena Nikolaevna regulated access to the author of The Young Guard.

Another thing is noteworthy. Parents and grandmothers strive to preserve the drawings and notes made by their children and grandchildren at different ages. And Elena Nikolaevna, being the head of the kindergarten, destroyed all Oleg's diaries and notebooks, so there is no way to even see his handwriting. But verses written by Elena Nikolaevna's hand, which she declared belonged to Oleg, were preserved. There were rumors that it was she who composed them herself.

We must not forget the main

- Surviving Young Guards could bring clarity to controversial issues. Did they meet after the war?

- All together - never. In fact, there was a split. They did not agree on the question of who should be considered the commissar of the Young Guard. Borts, Ivantsovs and Shishchenko considered them Koshevoy, and Yurkin, Arutyunyants and Levashov - Tretyakevich. At the same time, in the period from 1943 until the end of the 1950s, Tretyakevich was considered a traitor. His older brother Mikhail was relieved of his post as secretary of the Luhansk Regional Party Committee. Another brother, Vladimir, an army political worker, was declared a party penalty, he was demobilized from the army. Tretyakevich's parents also experienced this injustice hard: his mother was ill, his father was paralyzed.

In 1959, Viktor was rehabilitated, his feat was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. However, in May 1965, only Yurkin, Lopukhov and Levashov from the Young Guard came to the opening of the monument to Tretyakevich in the village of Yasenki, Kursk Region, where he was born. According to Valeria Borts, in the 1980s the Komsomol Central Committee gathered the surviving members of the Krasnodon underground organization. But there are no documents about this meeting in the archive. And the disagreements between the Young Guards were never eliminated.

Monument "Oath" on the central square of Krasnodon

- What impression did films about young underground workers make on you? After all, the story of the "Young Guard" has been filmed more than once.

- I like Sergei Gerasimov's film. The black-and-white film accurately and dynamically conveyed that time, the state of mind and the experiences of the Soviet people. But on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory, veterans and the whole country received a very strange “gift” from Channel One. The series "Young Guard" was announced as a "true story" of an underground organization. On the basis of what this supposedly true story was created, they did not bother to explain to us. The heroes of the Young Guard, whose images were captured on the screen, must have turned over in their graves. The creators of historical films need to carefully read documents and works that correctly reflect a bygone era.

- Roman Fadeeva, who has been part of the school curriculum for many decades, has long been excluded from it. Do you think it might be worth bringing it back?

- I like the novel, and I advocate that it be included in the school curriculum. It correctly reflects the thoughts and feelings of young people of that time, their characters are truthfully given. This work rightfully entered the golden fund of Soviet literature, combining both documentary truth and artistic comprehension. The educational potential of the novel is still preserved. In my opinion, it would be good to republish the novel in its first version, not corrected by Fadeev himself. Moreover, the publication should be accompanied by an article that would briefly outline what we were talking about. It must be emphasized that the novel is a novel, and not the history of the Young Guard. The history of the Krasnodon underground must be studied according to documents. And this topic is not closed yet.

At the same time, one should not forget about the main thing. All disputes on specific issues and on the role of individuals in the organization should not cast a shadow on the greatness of the feat accomplished by the young underground workers of Krasnodon. Oleg Koshevoy, Viktor Tretyakevich and other young guardsmen gave their lives for the freedom of the motherland. And we have no right to forget about it. And further. Speaking about the activities of the "Young Guard", we must remember that this is not a feat of loners. This is a collective feat of the Krasnodon youth. We need to talk more about the contribution to the struggle of each young guard, and not argue about who held what position in the organization.

Interviewed by Oleg Nazarov

A. Druzhinina, student of the Faculty of History and Social Sciences, Leningrad State Regional University. A. S. Pushkin.

Viktor Tretyakevich.

Sergei Tyulenin.

Ulyana Gromova.

Ivan Zemnukhov.

Oleg Koshevoy.

Lyubov Shevtsova.

Monument "Oath" on the square named after the Young Guard in Krasnodon.

A corner of the museum dedicated to the Young Guards is the banner of the organization and the sledge on which weapons were carried. Krasnodon.

Anna Iosifovna, the mother of Viktor Tretyakevich, waited for the day when the honest name of her son was restored.

While studying for three years how the “Young Guard” arose and how it worked behind enemy lines, I realized that the main thing in its history is not the organization itself and its structure, not even the feats it accomplished (although, of course, everything done by the guys causes immense respect and admiration). Indeed, during the Second World War, hundreds of such underground or partisan detachments were created in the occupied territory of the USSR, but the Young Guard became the first organization that they learned about almost immediately after the death of its members. And almost everyone died - about a hundred people. The main thing in the history of the "Young Guard" began precisely on January 1, 1943, when its leading troika was arrested.

Now some journalists write with disdain about the fact that the Young Guard did nothing special, that they were OUN members at all, or even just “Krasnodon lads”. It's amazing how seemingly serious people cannot understand (or don't want to?) that they - these boys and girls - performed the main feat of their lives right there, in prison, where they experienced inhuman torture, but to the end, until death from a bullet at the abandoned pit, where many were dumped while still alive, they remained people.

On the anniversary of their memory, I would like to recall at least some episodes from the life of the Young Guard and how they died. They deserve it. (All facts are taken from documentary books and essays, conversations with eyewitnesses of those days and archival documents.)

They were brought to an abandoned mine -
and pushed out of the car.
The guys led each other by the arms,
supported in the hour of death.
Beaten, exhausted, they walked into the night
in bloody rags.
And the boys tried to help the girls
and even joked, as before ...

Yes, that's right, at an abandoned mine, most of the members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard", which fought in 1942 against the Nazis in the small Ukrainian town of Krasnodon, lost their lives. It turned out to be the first underground youth organization about which it was possible to collect quite detailed information. The Young Guards were then called heroes (they were heroes), who gave their lives for their homeland. A little over ten years ago, everyone knew about the Young Guard. The novel of the same name by Alexander Fadeev was studied in schools; at the screening of Sergei Gerasimov's film, people could not hold back their tears; motor ships, streets, hundreds of educational institutions and pioneer detachments were named after the Young Guards. More than three hundred Young Guard museums were created throughout the country (and even abroad), and about 11 million people visited the Krasnodon Museum.

And who now knows about the Krasnodon underground? In recent years, the Krasnodon Museum has been empty and quiet, only eight out of three hundred school museums in the country have remained, and in the press (both in Russia and in Ukraine) young heroes are increasingly called “nationalists”, “unorganized Komsomol lads”, and some and even denies their existence.

What were they like, these young men and women who called themselves Young Guardsmen?

The Krasnodon Komsomol youth underground included seventy-one people: forty-seven boys and twenty-four girls. The youngest was fourteen, and fifty-five of them never turned nineteen. The most ordinary, no different from the same boys and girls of our country, the guys were friends and quarreled, studied and fell in love, ran to dances and chased pigeons. They were engaged in school circles, sports clubs, played stringed musical instruments, wrote poetry, many of them were good at drawing.

They studied in different ways - someone was an excellent student, and someone with difficulty overcame the granite of science. There were also a lot of tomboys. Dreamed of a future adult life. They wanted to become pilots, engineers, lawyers, someone was going to enter the theater school, and someone - to the pedagogical institute.

The “Young Guard” was as multinational as the population of these southern regions of the USSR. Russians, Ukrainians (there were Cossacks among them), Armenians, Belarusians, Jews, Azerbaijanis and Moldavians, ready to help each other at any moment, fought against the Nazis.

The Germans occupied Krasnodon on July 20, 1942. And almost immediately the first leaflets appeared in the city, a new bathhouse, already ready for the German barracks, was on fire. It was Seryozhka Tyulenin who began to act. One.

On August 12, 1942, he turned seventeen. Sergey wrote leaflets on pieces of old newspapers, and the policemen often found them in their pockets. He began to collect weapons, not even doubting that they would definitely come in handy. And he was the first to attract a group of guys ready to fight. It initially consisted of eight people. However, by the first days of September, several groups were already operating in Krasnodon, not connected with one another - in total there were 25 people in them. The birthday of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" was September 30: then the plan for creating a detachment was adopted, specific actions for underground work were outlined, and a headquarters was created. It included Ivan Zemnukhov - chief of staff, Vasily Levashov - commander of the central group, Georgy Arutyunyants and Sergey Tyulenin - members of the headquarters. Viktor Tretyakevich was elected commissar. The guys unanimously supported Tyulenin's proposal to name the detachment "Young Guard". And in early October, all the scattered underground groups were united into one organization. Later, Uliana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova, Oleg Koshevoy and Ivan Turkenich joined the headquarters.

Now you can often hear that the Young Guards did nothing special. Well, they put up leaflets, collected weapons, burned and contaminated the grain intended for the invaders. Well, they hung out several flags on the day of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, burned the Labor Exchange, saved several dozen prisoners of war. Other underground organizations have existed longer and done more!

And do these unfortunate critics understand that everything, literally everything, these boys and girls committed on the verge of life and death. Is it easy to walk down the street when warnings are posted on almost every house and fence that if you don’t hand over your weapon, you will be shot. And at the bottom of the bag, under the potatoes, there are two grenades, and you have to walk past several dozen policemen with an independent air, and everyone can stop ... By the beginning of December, the Young Guard already had 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, about 15 thousand rounds of ammunition, 10 pistols, 65 kilograms of explosives and several hundred meters of Fickford cord.

Isn't it scary to sneak past the German patrol at night, knowing that for appearing on the street after six in the evening there is a threat of execution? But most of the work was done at night. At night, they burned the German Labor Exchange - and two and a half thousand Krasnodon residents were delivered from German hard labor. On the night of November 7, the Young Guards hung out red flags - and the next morning, when they saw them, people experienced great joy: “We are remembered, we are not forgotten by ours!” At night, prisoners of war were released, telephone wires were cut, German vehicles were attacked, a herd of cattle of 500 heads was recaptured from the Nazis and dispersed to the nearest farms and settlements.

Even leaflets were pasted mostly at night, although it happened that they had to do it during the day. At first, leaflets were written by hand, then they began to be printed in the same organized printing house. In total, the Young Guards issued about 30 separate leaflets with a total circulation of almost five thousand copies - from which Krasnodon residents learned the latest reports from the Sovinformburo.

In December, the first disagreements appeared at the headquarters, which later became the basis of the legend that still lives on and according to which Oleg Koshevoy is considered the commissar of the Young Guard.

What happened? Koshevoy began to insist that a detachment of 15-20 people be singled out from all the underground workers, capable of operating separately from the main detachment. It was in him that Koshevoy was supposed to become a commissar. The guys did not support this proposal. Nevertheless, Oleg, after another admission to the Komsomol of a youth group, took temporary Komsomol tickets from Vanya Zemnukhov, but did not give them, as always, to Viktor Tretyakevich, but issued them to the newly accepted ones himself, signing: “Commissar of the Molot partisan detachment Kashuk.”

On January 1, 1943, three young guards were arrested: Yevgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich and Ivan Zemnukhov - the Nazis fell into the very heart of the organization. On the same day, the remaining members of the headquarters urgently gathered and decided: all the Young Guards should immediately leave the city, and the leaders should not spend the night at home that night. All underground workers were informed about the decision of the headquarters through messengers. One of them, who was in the group of the village of Pervomaika, Gennady Pocheptsov, having learned about the arrests, got cold feet and wrote a statement to the police about the existence of an underground organization.

The entire punitive apparatus was set in motion. Mass arrests began. But why didn't the majority of the Young Guards follow the order of the headquarters? After all, this first disobedience, and hence the violation of the oath, cost almost all of them their lives! Probably due to the lack of life experience. At first, the guys did not realize that a catastrophe had happened and their leading trio could no longer get out of prison. Many could not decide for themselves: whether to leave the city, whether to help the arrested, or voluntarily share their fate. They did not understand that the headquarters had already considered all the options and took the only correct one into action. But most of them didn't do it. Almost everyone was afraid for their parents.

Only twelve young guards managed to escape in those days. But later, two of them - Sergei Tyulenin and Oleg Koshevoy - were nevertheless arrested. Four cells of the city police were packed to capacity. All the guys were terribly tortured. The office of the chief of police, Solikovsky, looked more like a slaughterhouse - it was so spattered with blood. In order not to hear the screams of the tortured in the yard, the monsters started the gramophone and turned it on at full volume.

Underground workers were hung by the neck to the window frame, simulating execution by hanging, and by the legs, to the ceiling hook. And they beat, beat, beat - with sticks and wire whips with nuts on the end. The girls were hung by braids, and the hair could not stand it, it broke off. The Young Guards were crushed by the door with fingers, shoe needles were driven under the nails, they were put on a hot stove, stars were cut out on the chest and back. Their bones were broken, their eyes were gouged out and burnt out, their arms and legs were cut off…

The executioners, having learned from Pocheptsov that Tretyakevich was one of the leaders of the Young Guard, decided at all costs to force him to speak, believing that then it would be easier to cope with the rest. He was tortured with extreme cruelty, he was mutilated beyond recognition. But Victor remained silent. Then a rumor was spread among the arrested and in the city: Tretyakevich had betrayed everyone. But Victor's comrades did not believe it.

On a cold winter night on January 15, 1943, the first group of Young Guardsmen, including Tretyakevich, was taken to the ruined mine for execution. When they were put on the edge of the pit, Victor grabbed the deputy chief of police by the neck and tried to drag him along with him to a depth of 50 meters. The frightened executioner turned pale with fear and almost did not resist, and only the gendarme arrived in time, hitting Tretyakevich on the head with a pistol, saved the policeman from death.

On January 16, the second group of underground workers was shot, on the 31st - the third. One of this group managed to escape from the place of execution. It was Anatoly Kovalev, who later went missing.

Four remained in prison. They were taken to the city of Rovenki in the Krasnodon region and shot on February 9 along with Oleg Koshev, who was there.

On February 14, Soviet troops entered Krasnodon. February 17 became a day of mourning, full of weeping and lamentations. From a deep, dark pit, the bodies of tortured young men and women were taken out with a bucket. It was difficult to recognize them; some of the children were identified by their parents only by their clothes.

A wooden obelisk was placed on the mass grave with the names of the dead and with the words:

And drops of your hot blood,
Like sparks flare up in the darkness of life
And many brave hearts will be lit!

The name of Viktor Tretyakevich was not on the obelisk! And his mother, Anna Iosifovna, never took off her black dress again and tried to go to the grave later so as not to meet anyone there. She, of course, did not believe in her son's betrayal, just as most of her fellow countrymen did not, but the conclusions of the commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League under the leadership of Toritsin and the subsequently remarkable novel by Fadeev, which was published in artistic terms, had an impact on the minds and hearts of millions of people. One can only regret that Fadeev's novel The Young Guard did not turn out to be equally remarkable in respecting historical truth.

The investigating authorities also accepted the version of Tretyakevich's betrayal, and even when the true traitor Pocheptsov, who was subsequently arrested, confessed to everything, the charge was not removed from Viktor. And since, according to party leaders, a traitor cannot be a commissar, Oleg Koshevoy was elevated to this rank, whose signature was on the December Komsomol tickets - “Commissar of the Molot partisan detachment Kashuk.”

After 16 years, one of the most ferocious executioners who tortured the Young Guards, Vasily Podtynny, was arrested. During the investigation, he stated: Tretyakevich was slandered, but he, despite severe torture and beatings, did not betray anyone.

So almost 17 years later, the truth triumphed. By decree of December 13, 1960, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR rehabilitated Viktor Tretyakevich and awarded him the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree (posthumously). His name began to be included in all official documents, along with the names of other heroes of the Young Guard.

Anna Iosifovna, Victor's mother, who never took off her mourning black clothes, stood in front of the presidium of the solemn meeting in Voroshilovgrad when she was presented with her son's posthumous award. The crowded hall, standing up, applauded her, but it seemed that what was happening no longer pleased her. Maybe because her mother always knew that her son was an honest man... Anna Iosifovna turned to her comrade, who was rewarding her, with only one request: not to show the film "Young Guard" in the city these days.

So, the stigma of a traitor was removed from Viktor Tretyakevich, but he was never restored to the rank of commissar and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, which was awarded to the rest of the dead members of the Young Guard headquarters, was not honored.

Finishing this short story about the heroic and tragic days of the Krasnodon people, I would like to say that the heroism and tragedy of the Young Guard are probably still far from being revealed. But this is our history, and we have no right to forget it.

"Young guard", monthly literary, artistic and socio-political magazine of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League. It has been published in Moscow since 1922 (it was not published from 1942 to 1947; in 1947-56 it was published as an almanac of young writers). It publishes works by Soviet and foreign writers (mainly on youth topics), journalism, and literary critical articles. Circulation (1974) 590 thousand copies. Awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1972).

Lit .: Maksimov A., Soviet journalism of the 20s, L., 1964.

• - an underground Komsomol organization operating in the city of Krasnodon, Lugansk region. in Oct. 1942 - Feb. 1943, during the time period. German-Fash. occupation of Donbass. "M. g." arose at hand. part. organizations...

  Soviet historical encyclopedia

• - "", an underground Komsomol organization during the Great Patriotic War in the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region ...

  Russian encyclopedia

• - Bookshop: "Young Guard". Sections of psychology: All sections. Address: Moscow, st. B. Polyanka, 28. Phone: 238-50-01...

  Psychological Dictionary

• - - publishing house, JSC, Moscow. Children's, educational and other literature...

  Pedagogical terminological dictionary

• - with the supplement "Hunting Notes", monthly, published in Moscow in 1876; editor-publisher D. Kishensky...
• - monthly illustrated literary magazine; published in St. Petersburg. since 1895 Publishers: D. A. Gepik, P. V. Golyakhovsky, since the end of 1898 V. S. Mirolyubov ...

  Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron

• - published in Moscow in 1882. Publisher A. Gelvich ...

  Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron

• - The Young Guard is an underground Komsomol organization operating in the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region. during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, during the period of temporary occupation by the German fascist ...
• - I Young Guard literary group, which arose in 1922 at the initiative of the Central Committee of the RKSM and united writers of the first Komsomol generation ...

  Great Soviet Encyclopedia

• - "Young Guard", a book and magazine publishing house of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, publishing fiction, socio-political and popular science literature for youth and children ...

  Great Soviet Encyclopedia

• - "Young Guard", a literary group that arose in 1922 at the initiative of the Central Committee of the RKSM and united writers of the first Komsomol generation ...

  Great Soviet Encyclopedia

• - "Young Guard", an underground Komsomol organization operating in the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region. during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, during the period of temporary occupation by Nazi troops ...

  Great Soviet Encyclopedia

• - "" - publishing and printing association, Moscow. Founded in 1922. Since November 1993, as part of JSC "Young Guard"...
• - "" - an underground Komsomol organization during the Great Patriotic War in the city of Krasnodon. Supervised by: I. V. Turkenich, O. V. Koshevoy, U. M. Gromova, I. A. Zemnukhov, S. G. Tyulenin, L. G. Shevtsova...

  Big encyclopedic dictionary

• - The expression became popular during the Napoleonic Wars, when Napoleon divided his guard into two parts - the “young guard” and the “old guard”, which consisted of experienced soldiers ...

  Dictionary of winged words and expressions

• - Pub. Pathet. Obsolete 1. About advanced, revolutionary-minded youth. BAS 1, 541. 2. About the new generation, the change of the elders. BMS 1998, 107...

  Big dictionary of Russian sayings

"Young Guard (magazine)" in books

Young guard of clipmakers

From the book of the Cossack author Mordyukova Nonna Viktorovna

The Young Guard of Clip Makers Once we left the Mosfilm pavilion into the yard to breathe a little. They sat down on a bench and began to look at a flock of young men, almost boys, sitting on the grass. They are so cute, dressed in fashion, odorous, friendly. squint off

YOUNG KLIMPEN GUARDS

From the book Notes of an Actress author Mordyukova Nonna

THE YOUNG GUARDS OF THE CLIPMANS Last summer we somehow went out of the Mosfilm pavilion into the yard to breathe a little. They sat down on a bench and began to look at a flock of teenagers, almost boys, sitting on the grass. They are so cute, dressed in fashion, odorous, friendly.

"Young guard"

From the author's book

"Young Guard" The first notable role of Yumatov in the cinema was the image of Anatoly Popov in the film "Young Guard" by Sergei Gerasimov, which tells about young underground workers, yesterday's schoolchildren who fought against the Nazis in the occupied Krasnodon and heroically

"Young guard"

From the author's book

"Young Guard" Ups and downs in acting life is a common thing. Probably, the sad list of unfulfilled things begins with this film. As we know, in the legendary film of his "godfather" Sergei Gerasimov, Georgy Yumatov, on whose account by that time

2. "Young Guard"

From the book My XX Century: the happiness of being yourself author Petelin Viktor Vasilievich

2. "Young Guard" In November 1968, I already worked in the editorial office of the magazine. A week or two later, he gathered a meeting of critics, prose writers, and art historians to discuss a long-term editorial plan for the next year, 1969. The meeting was attended by Oleg Mikhailov, Viktor Chalmaev,

"YOUNG GUARD"

From the book 100 great domestic films author Mussky Igor Anatolievich

"YOUNG GUARD" Film Studio. M. Gorky, 1948. Scriptwriter and director S. Gerasimov. Operator V. Rapoport. Artist I. Stepanov. Composer D. Shostakovich. Cast: V. Ivanov, I. Makarova, S. Gurzo, N. Mordyukova, B. Bityukov, S. Bondarchuk, G. Romanov, L. Shagalova, E. Morgunov, V.

Young guard

From the book All masterpieces of world literature in brief. Plots and characters. Russian literature of the XX century the author Novikov V I

Young Guard Roman (1945–1946; 2nd ed. - 1951) Under the scorching sun of July 1942, the retreating units of the Red Army walked along the Donetsk steppe with their convoys, artillery, tanks, orphanages and gardens, herds of cattle, trucks, refugees ... But they are no longer able to cross the Donets

"Young Guard" (magazine)

TSB

"Young Guard" (publishing house)

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (MO) of the author TSB

Young guard

From the book Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions author Serov Vadim Vasilievich

Young Guard The expression became popular during the Napoleonic Wars, when Napoleon divided his guard into two parts - the “young guard” and the “old guard”, which consisted of experienced soldiers. In Soviet times, the older generation of Bolsheviks was called the “old guard”,

YOUNG GUARD

From the book Russian Literature Today. New guide author Chuprinin Sergey Ivanovich

YOUNG GVARDIA Monthly literary, artistic and socio-political magazine. Founded in 1922 (did not appear in 1942–1947). Published as an organ of the Writers' Union of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, he was awarded the Order for his services in the development of Soviet literature and the education of Soviet youth.

We are the Young Guard...

From the book Russian advertising in faces the author Golfman Joseph

We are the "Young Guard" ... The salary of a young specialist. And you could not stand it. You defended your diploma. But in graduate school, he really did not stay. I had to choose, and I chose. Started freelancing? No. Already from the fourth year was the head. department of satire and humor of the "Student

"Young guard"

From the book Encyclopedia of Delusions. War author Temirov Yury Teshabaevich

"Young Guard" Many generations of Soviet people are familiar with the following words from the Young Guard oath:

Young guard

From the book Cinderella in the absence of the prince author Arbitman Roman Emilievich

The Young Guard So, the masters switched to "remakes", and the students of the best masters of the National Philosophy of that time - A. and B. Strugatsky - try to belittle their achievements. Partly for the sake of ambition, partly for the purpose of commerce. Five years ago, Andrey Chertkov, editor of the publishing house Terra Fantastica, gave birth to

Young Guard / Sport

From the book Results No. 37 (2012) author Results Magazine

To be honest, in high school I was "sick" of Fadeev's novel, I watched a film by Sergei Gerasimov several times, I was very worried that I was sick when the class went on an excursion to Krasnodon, collected books and information about the "Young Guard". It was not an "ideological call", but sincere admiration for the feat of their peers. It was then that information would be made public that Fadeev, in a hurry to fulfill the “order of the party,” made Viktor Tretyakevich the prototype of the traitor Stakhovich, which later became one of the reasons for the writer’s suicide. Then the "recent historians" will delve into the activities of the organization, look for "fried facts" and write that half of the story was invented by the ideologists of the party and Fadeev. But after all, no one can dispute the existence of the Young Guard organization and the fact that dozens of young 18-year-olds fought and died a martyr's death. It will later become known that in a hundred cities and villages, Komsomol underground organizations operated, where thousands of the same young guys fought with the occupiers and died just as heroically. For example, in the same period in Dnepropetrovsk there was an underground youth organization of the Amur-Nizhnedneprovsk region, where the leaders were Pavel Morozov and Galina Andrusenko. The Dnepropetrovsk people derailed the echelons no less (the city is a large railway junction), posted leaflets no less, killed policemen, freed prisoners of war, etc., and just like the Krasnodon guys, they were extradited and shot after long interrogations and torture. They were no less worthy of becoming national heroes, but "according to the order of the party" fame went to the "Young Guard". For example, while studying in this city, I learned about the underground in Dnepropetrovsk from a book by local historian and writer Vladimir Dubovik. The history of the Dnepropetrovsk underground was the theme of our graduation performance. Even then I thought - why the whole world knows about the Krasnodontsy, and the guys from Dnepropetrovsk only in 1976 "thought" of erecting a monument, and practically nothing was known about their activities. I am writing all this only to the fact that in that Soviet "totalitarian-propaganda" time, we learned about the heroism of those whom we were told about, and many heroes remained unknown to us and sometimes nameless. Therefore, the artists, both in paintings and in graphics (thanks to Fadeev's novel), sang only the Young Guards. That's why this collection came up.

Pavel Sokolov-Skalia Krasnodontsy. 1948

Semyon Livshits The Young Guard listen to Moscow.

Semyon Livshits Young Guards.

It was in Krasnodon

Who's sneaking up the street
Who doesn't sleep on a night like this?
The leaflet beats in the wind
The stock exchange is on fire.
Enemies will not find peace
Can't remember at all:
Above the city government
Someone raised a red flag.
The power of the feat of the saint
The youth always leads.
We are Oleg Koshevoy
Let's never forget.
It was in Krasnodon,
In the formidable glow of war,
Komsomol underground
Rose for the honor of the country.
And through the centuries
This glory will carry
Grateful Russia
And our great people.

Vsevolod Parchevsky The first leaflets.

Valerian Shcheglov Illustration for the novel The Young Guard.

Moses Volshtein and Alexander Filbert The flag over the school.

Song about Krasnodon

These nights, friends
We cannot forget.
The steppe is all around and you can't see it.
Krasnodon, Krasnodon,
You are plunged into darkness.
Enemies are above you.

Heart, keep quiet
What a rustle in the night
What's the rustle in a stormy night?
These are true friends
In the darkness of Donetsk nights
Collected by Oleg Koshevoy.

Bold thoughts are not melting,
Friends swore an oath
Made a formidable oath of the heart.
And for your truth
In a merciless fight
Komsomol members stand to the end.

And smoke billows
Above the fire at night
And the traitor's groan is heard.
Krasnodon, you are not sleeping,
You harbor anxiety
You did not surrender to the enemy, Krasnodon!

People silently look
How they fly over the steppe
Flocks of free steppe pigeons
Heart, knock louder
Every feat in the night
Warms the soul of Donetsk people.

Krasnodon, Krasnodon, -
City of bright names
Your glory will not vanish!
In every heart forever
Your fearless Oleg
And his fighting friends.

A. Varshavsky On the eve of the uprising.

Fedor Kostenko Unconquered.

Moses Volshtein and Alexander Filbert Reprisal.

Young Guards.

I dream: over the military Krasnodon
A cold month rose in the winter sky,
And under the feet of a bottomless abyss
A hole gaping black failure.

As the night is bright... and the moon is getting cold in the sky,
Throwing a pale yellow light on the snow.
I know the name of each of you,
I'm with you... but I'm not here yet, am I?

I'm like a shadow, I'm just a pathetic ghost!
There is nothing I can do to help you.
Now the shimmer of your young lives
Put out this icy night.

So was it all for nothing?
Death snarls from the black void.
Stars of ice will go out the passionless brilliance -
The end of hope and the end of dreams.

Not! Hell no, you were right!
Darkness is replaced by light.
Yes, the kats will now inflict reprisals,
But they will answer for her.

And I, through a dream, as through a cotton wool fog,
I scream, piercing the echo of time:
"Ninth... Ninth, guys!
The damned war will end!"

Valerian Shcheglov Arrest of Ulyana Gromova. Illustration for the novel The Young Guard.

Glebov U. Gromova reads Lermontov's poems in the chamber.

Valerian Shcheglov Illustration for the novel The Young Guard.

Listen comrades...

Listen, comrades!
Our days are ending
We are closed - locked
From four sides...
Listen, comrades!
Says goodbye
Young guard,
City of Krasnodon.

Everything we're supposed to
Passed, gone.
Few of them are left
A matter of minutes.
Soon we, exhausted,
Tied and twisted
For a fierce reprisal
The Germans will lead.

We know, comrades,
Nobody will let us out
We know that rapists
Complete their
But when would I return
Our youth all over again
We would again for the motherland
They gave her away.

Listen, comrades!
All the things we didn't do
All that we did not have time
On your way -
Faithful in your hands
Into your brave hands
In the hands of the Komsomol
We are transmitting.

Revenge for the offended
Revenge the humiliated
Vile murderer
Revenge every hour!
Revenge for the abused
For the dead, the stolen,
For yourself, comrades,
And for all of us.

Let the rapist rush about
In fear and despair
Let your Germans
He will not see!
It bequeaths to you
In the mournful hour of farewell
Young guard,
City of Krasnodon.

Mikhail Poplavsky Oleg Koshevoy during interrogation.

Oskolkov Young Guard. 1970

Valentin Zadorozhny Krasnodontsy. They are immortal.

***
We'll stay here
In the swept mass of birch.
Spread out
Embracing, like loved ones, tousled snow.
And the trees grow
High above the years and thunderstorms!
And under our weight
Forest sunsets are redder.

The war has done
Scattered on the pebbles of the fortress.
But the snub-nosed full face is more visible in pre-war albums:
Do not grieve for us -
We are forever missing.
And remember us young.
Remember us.

Daria Veryasova

"Young Guard", Krasnodon, Lugansk region.

Viktor Tretyakevich "Young Guard", Krasnodon, Lugansk region.
Hero of the Soviet Union Oleg Koshevoy "Young Guard", Krasnodon, Lugansk region.
Hero of the Soviet Union Ulyana Gromova "Young Guard", Krasnodon, Lugansk region.
Hero of the Soviet Union Ivan Zemnukhov "Young Guard", Krasnodon, Lugansk region.